What I Learned At iTunes U

Download free educational content from top colleges and universities, and cram both knowledge and earbuds into your head.

February is Black History Month, plus American History Month, Native American Heritage Month, and National Boost-Your-Self-Esteem Month. It’s also cold outside and unofficial Cabin Fever Month. So I set out to stave off boredom while increasing my brainpower and boosting my self-esteem at the same time—while using my Mac, since that’s my job. Time to dive into iTunes U and see what I can learn.

iTunes U launched in 2007 to allow schools in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom to make digital content available to their students—and the public at large. There’s even a Beyond Campus area with multimedia materials from sources like PBS, American Public Media, Smithsonian Global Sound, and the Museum of Modern Art. The amount of tracks you can download (individually, as a series, or even as a podcast-like subscription) is staggering, but as with actual college classes—if I can even remember those—some are more educational than others. Still, everything’s free, unlike actual college, so it’s more than worth your time to check it out, look around, and see what nuggets of knowledge you can uncover. Here’s what I learned in my semester (OK, OK, more like a week or two) at iTunes U.

1. I Am Irrational! But it’s OK, we are all...predictably, it would turn out. While my irrationality might not surprise those who know me (somewhere my husband is nodding without knowing why), I still found it fascinating when I listened to the Predictably Irrational series by Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. These short videos (which are photo slide shows with narration by the professor) highlight points made in Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational. Each topic provided tons of food for thought—it was easy to see how this could generate great discussions in a business class. But business types aren’t the only ones interested in why people make the choices they make—that could be useful to anyone.

2. I Need to Get to New York More Often. Not just the Big Apple, either—Washington, D.C., too. This was made quite clear while perusing the Beyond Campus section (linked off the main iTunes U page in the iTunes Store). I watched a video on the Tomb of Perneb, housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was cool for its behind-the-scenes tidbits and backstory but can’t compare to the majesty of seeing such a work in person. The 92nd Street Y offers talks by noted authors such as Anthony Bourdain, Michael Pollan, and the late Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and those videos were just as good as being there. More educational selections from the MoMA, the New York Public Library, and even the Smithsonian not only made me wish I were closer to those East Coast institutions, but also reminded me to pay closer attention to these kinds of live lectures, readings, and concerts in my own city.

3. Content for Kids Doesn’t Need to Be Dumbed Down. iTunes U has programs aimed at the K-12 set as well as those pizza-crazed college slackers. I absolutely loved the guitar and drum lessons posted by Little Kids Rock, and I’m pretty sure you will too, no matter how long it’s been since you drank juice from a box. You can even download PDFs that go with each lesson, plus a full activity book and videos of kids rocking out. The Cassiopeia Project, featuring free videos that explain tricky science concepts in easily understandable language, is similarly excellent. And Arizona State University’s Ask a Biologist audio series is aimed at kids in high school and younger, but oops, I learned a lot about bees, microbes, and pandas anyway.

4. Black History Should Get Way, Way More Than a Month. I was thrilled to find so much on iTunes U that could fall under the umbrella of black history: Moving readings by Alice Walker at Emory University; rousing African music and dance at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival 1997; a whole class from Stanford University (videotaped lectures, plus the syllabus) on African-American History: The Modern Freedom Struggle; engaging videos about Ghana’s traditional textiles by the Open University; lectures and sermons from Fuller Theological Seminary’s African-American Church Studies department; and even Barack Obama’s excellent speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which is part of Say It Plain: Great African-American Oratory from American RadioWorks. Search for that last series and you can hear Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech whenever you like—play it this January 19 in Dr. King’s honor.

5. You Can’t Get Healthy by Listening to a Podcast. Well, duh, but I found lots of health-related content that could nudge anyone in the right direction. The University of Michigan’s MiFitness series has audio exercise programs for walking, stretching, running, and so on. UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center offers audio tracks for meditating. Emory University’s Mini Medical School series features faculty MDs offering insight on health issues like allergies, back pain, and heart disease. If you don’t find your particular concern addressed, check out the University of Michigan’s Ask the Podcast Doctor series, which is just what it sounds like (submit questions at askthepodcastdoctor.org). I picked up some awesome back stretches to use before and after snowboarding, and the truth about knuckle-cracking.

6. Highlighting All the Cool Stuff in iTunes U Is Impossible. Well, maybe it’s possible, but it would take way, way more words than I have for this article. Fire up the iTunes Store, click iTunes U, and poke around for some free knowledge.